Flight training simulators may include one or more display screens and simulated controls. The display screens may simulate a scene that may be viewed when piloting an aircraft. In response to inputs at the simulated controls, a control system changes the perspective of the scene to simulate movement of the simulated aircraft in response to the inputs.
For some types of flight training, such as military flight training, it may be useful to simulate night missions in which a pilot may wear night vision goggles (NVGs) in order to identify targets or objects of interest. NVGs or other night vision devices are designed to have high sensitivity in the near-infrared (near-IR) portion of the spectrum. This is because naturally-occurring illumination provided by a night sky includes predominantly near-IR light. Infrared light images can be difficult to simulate using standard projectors without also displaying the objects in a human visible spectrum. When the objects are detectable in the human visible light spectrum, a pilot trainee may detect the infrared light objects by peeking around the edges of the NVGs or with the NVGs moved out of position. Being able to detect the infrared light objects without the aid of the NVGs may make the simulation of the night mission less realistic and, thus, may make the simulation somewhat less valuable.